The last half of March was an anxious time. He was due to arrive on Saturday 3 April, but I was going to be in Italy and I’d miss him. We had a wonderful time visiting the Colosseum, the Forum and Castel Sant Angelo. A morning in Ostia was lovely. We went early, before the crowds, and found ourselves sharing the ruins with birds and lizards. Then on to Sorrento by way of Monte Cassino, where we visited the Polish Cemetery. I happened to be reading Richard Holmes on Wellington during the journey. The visit and the book brought back all my loathing of war, of the pomp and ceremony and cool language behind which this most dreadful of human failings is cloaked. From these saddening thoughts on to Sorrento where as we sat carelessly eating and drinking a procession of cloaked and hooded penitents passed by. To terrible Vesuvius next and a hot walk to the top of the crater, climbing up from the ordure that infests the area around the ticket office: the dog shit and litter, dust and fume-belc...

Whenever I try to talk about Mikhail Bulgakov I go all spluttery and purple-faced, my eyes water, I choke and gasp, and I might after a few minutes’ gibbering manage to squeak “bloody genius” – and that doesn’t express a fraction of the regard I have for his work. Mention The Master and Margarita and I fall apart completely. Refer to his novel The White Guard and I may just about manage to convey that it’s got the best ending of any book anywhere in the universe at any time. Imagine, then, how much I was looking forward to seeing The White Guard at the Lyttelton Theatre last Saturday (20 March), in Andrew Upton’s “new version”. I read the novel in readiness, spent the afternoon at the splendid Wallace Collection, and then went to the theatre. The performance surprised me. The play was funny – and I hadn’t expected that. Yes, I expected humour – this is Bulgakov – but I suppose I had something darker in mind. I was frustrated by not knowing how much of a new version Upton’s rewrite i...

So it’s a capital offence to use adverbs? It is, according to Elmore Leonard, who lays down the law in his book 10 Rules of Writing , to be published shortly. If you haven’t seen the Guardian’s Leonard-inspired article Ten Rules for Writing Fiction , in which a number of authors share their dos and don’ts, you should. It’s packed full of advice: useful, funny, exasperating, gnomic, silly…see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one. But the poor old adverb. Why such animosity? I think there can be few words as wonderful as an adverb when it’s used in the right place. I remember the first time I came across “friendlily” many years ago, in a novel by Kate O’Brien. I’d never thought you could make an adverb of friendly and it stopped me dead in my reading tracks. Hang on – isn’t that what good writing is not supposed to do, interrupt the flow, introduce a bit of rough with the smooth? Well, no, not really. The occasional jolt or jar can work wonde...

When I was at school I had problems with A Midsummer Night’s Dream . It wasn’t just the dull way it was taught in my school back in the day. Students nowadays have much livelier texts to read from; many don’t even have to read a whole Shakespeare play any more but can get by with extracts. (Though how deciding half the school population are too stupid to read Shakespeare and thus denying them access to a hugely important element of our culture fits into the brave new widening participation world is beyond me. Still, it keeps the school exam results looking good.) The real issue for me was the play’s violence. This is a work that is often played as if it’s sweet and light, a bit of a romp, an easy confection. It’s got fairies, hasn’t it? But for me from the very start it was the violence that struck and disturbed me. A play that opens with a father threatening his daughter with death if she doesn’t marry the man of his choice, and that daughter being told that her father should be as a ...

Last Sunday (28 February) we (husband Gerard and I) went to see Simon Armitage at Bath Literary Festival, reading from the anthology he and bird enthusiast Tim Dee have put together: The Poetry of Birds . I love birds and I love Simon Armitage’s poetry and I’m sure I’d have loved Tim Dee too except that when we got there Simon Armitage was cancelled. That is, he was unable to be with us but lovely Helen Dunmore took his place. Lovely she is, but we had our hearts set on Simon Armitage so we got our money back and then looked for ways to redeem the morning. We quickly found them in coffee and cake followed by a joyous half hour in that book paradise which is Topping & Co Booksellers. I first encountered Mr Armitage at On the Border, a series of poetry readings which take place in the Drill Hall, Chepstow. He was appearing with Owen Sheers, and if I am honest – though at the risk of hurting Mr Armitage’s feelings – it was Owen Sheers I wanted to see. (If you want to know why read Res...